Jim Mallet said he was the first to come across the deadly shooting of two Baldwin State Prison Guards on Tuesday morning / Danielle Apolinar (WGXA)

PUTNAM COUNTY, Ga. (WGXA) - Putnam County resident Jim Mallet said he was first to the scene of the deadly shooting of two Baldwin State Prison correctional officers on Tuesday.

Malley was on his way to the hardware store when he saw the Department of Corrections bus stopped in the middle of the road.

He said he heard inmates on the bus calling for help and that it was his natural reaction to check out the situation.

"I turned on Highway 16 and quickly saw the prison bus," Mallet said. "Some of the prisoners were calling 'Help! help!' I felt obligated to stop. I was a little scared, didn't know what I was going into. I got to the bus and they said call 911."

Mallet said he saw Officers Christopher Monica and Curtis Billue's bodies as he approached the bus.

"I walked over to the bus, walked over to the door and I noticed one of the guards had been shot and killed in the door well, and still the bus driver wasn't moving at all," Mallet said. "He was still in his seat and at that point. I got back in my truck and waited until the police showed up."

Mallet said he hopes to block the deadly scene from his memory.

"Yesterday was a brutal day for me and I hope I can forget what it looked like," Mallet said.

He said he's lived in Putnam County since 2003 and had never seen anything like this before.

He hopes law enforcement can find the two suspects, Donnie Russell Rowe and Ricky Dubose, quickly so that no one else is hurt.

Rowe and Dubose reportedly overpowered the two guardswhile on a Georgia State Prison bus traveling on Highway 16 between Eatonton and Sparta Tuesday.

The men then took the guards' guns and shot them to death.

Authorities said they could now be traveling in a stolen white 2008 two-door Ford F-250 with silver tool boxes on both side rails. The truck has a Georgia license plate number BCX5372.